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Date: 29-Jan-2007 From: Richard Hallett <r-hallettneiu.edu>Subject: In and Out of English

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1803.html
Announced in http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1803.htmlEDITORS: Anderman, Gunilla; and Rogers, Margaret TITLE: In and Out of English SUBTITLE: For Better, for Worse? SERIES: Translating Europe YEAR: 2005 PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters

This book, a collection of papers on various aspects of translation vis-à-vis English, is 'the result of the Enlargement of the European Union and the rapidly changing face of Europe' (vii). Accordingly, all of the examples and case studies presented in the volume come from European countries. The exception is Chapter 2, which focuses on English and Lao in the Laotian context. The body of the book consists of the nineteen chapters briefly summarized below.

Chapter 1: 'English in Europe: For better, for worse?' by Gunilla Anderman and Margaret Rogers (1-26)

Recognizing the role of English as the European (and global) lingua franca, the authors present six 'arguments' regarding the maintenance and possible promotion of English in Europe: linguistic imperialism, global English, English and translation, global English language learning and teaching, international English, and pragmalinguistics. Anderman and Rogers provide a brief history of languages of widespread communication (colonization), e.g. Greek, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, and -- of course -- English. They then discuss the rise of global English, its influence on European languages, its native and non-native speakers, and its asymmetry in translation, among other aspects of English in Europe and the United States. The authors end the chapter with a quote from David Crystal questioning whether the global role of English will be viewed as a blessing or a curse for future generations.

Campbell begins his chapter by stating that professional translators, including theorists, educators, and practitioners, have ignored the spread of English, treating the language like any other language, not as a particular lingua franca. He discusses three key issues in translating in and out of English: power relations, value neutrality, and legitimate space. To illustrate the unequal balance in translation, he contrasts training community translators in Australia to developing a translation and interpreting unit in Laos.

Chapter 3: 'Unequal systems: On the problem of Anglicisms in contemporary French usage' by Christopher Rollason (39-56)

After stating that Anglicisms and pseudo-Anglicisms are not new in the French language, Rollason lists possible reasons for the hostility of the perceived 'Americanisation' of French, quoting journalists, literary critics, and psychoanalysts. The author then proffers possible motives for the use of non-French terms, as well as the deliberate selection of French lexical items, in written discourse.

Chapter 4: 'E-mail, Emilio or mensaje de correo electrónico? The Spanish language fight for purity in the new technologies' by Jeremy Munday (57-70)

Munday gives a summary of some of the ways Spanish, not only a major world language but also an official language of both the UN and the EU, is reacting to the spread of English. He focuses on the fight for language purity by the Real Academia de la Lengua and the Instituto Cervantes.

Chapter 5: 'The influence of English on Italian: The case of translations of economic articles' by Maria Teresa Musacchio (71-96)

Musacchio reports on a study using a parallel/comparable corpus of economic articles to determine 'to what extent language contact in translating affects target text production beyond lexical borrowing to take the form of transfer or patterns such as syntactic constructs, reproduction of source text repetition and cohesion' (73). She finds that in addition to transferring English lexical items in Italian economic articles, translators often transfer English syntactic structures and discourse patterns.

Chapter 6: 'The influence of English on Greek: A sociological approach' by Polymnia Tsagouria (97-107)

In this chapter, the author concentrates on the sociological aspects of the influence of English lexical items on the Greek lexicon. Tsagouria outlines major developments in Greek society, beginning with the late nineteenth century, and analyzes the attitudes of Greek writers who employ English vocabulary in their writings.

Chapter 7: 'Polish under siege?' by W. Chłopicki (108-122)

The author of this chapter addresses the question of whether or not Polish is threatened by the spread of English. After claiming that Polish is used by 40 million citizens of Poland as well as 10 to 15 million Polish speakers residing abroad, he provides an historical background on the language contact situation in Poland and concludes that Polish is not indeed dying as a result of English influence.

In this chapter, Chachibaia and Colenso address the issue of why there are so many recent Anglicisms in the Russian language. They argue that there are three main reasons for borrowings from English: a lack of an equivalent word in Russian, an established positive/negative connotation that an equivalent word lacks, and an established stylistic/emphatic effect.

In this chapter the authors seek to answer the question of what happens 'when a Germanic, analytic language like English meets a non-Indo-European, Finno-Ugric synthetic language such as Finnish' (133). To that end, they comment on the domains of English in Finland; e.g. English in advertising, English in information technology, English in job ads, English on television, 'translationese', and 'Finglish'.

Chapter 10: 'Contemporary English influence on German -- a perspective from linguistics' by Stephen Barbour (153-160)

Barbour addresses the widespread perception that German is being intensely influenced by English. He categorizes the German lexicon according to words that are core German words (Deutsche Wörter) and words that are from foreign languages (Fremdwörter), as well as those that derive from French and those that derive from English. He concludes that English is neither destroying nor taking over German.

Chapter 11: 'Anglicisms and translation' by Henrik Gottlieb (161-184)

Gottlieb's focus is the occurrence of Anglicisms in the Danish context. Claiming 'Anglicisms constitute perhaps the strongest unifying factor among the world's languages' (161), the author provides a typology of Anglicisms in Danish, a hierarchy of Danish lexical Anglicisms, and a list of the role of Anglicisms in Danish. He concludes the chapter with the claim that the only 'pure' form of a language is a fossilized one.

Chapter 12: 'Anglicisms in Norwegian: When and where?' by Stig Johansson and Anne-Line Graedler (185-200)

Johansson and Graedler investigate the use of English lexical items in Norwegian, in their examination of the use of Anglicisms in music, fashion, sports, soccer, the Olympics, films, television, advertising, economics, and slang, inter alia. They conclude their chapter with a brief discussion of Norwegian attitudes towards Anglicisms.

In this chapter, Gellerstam examines the current period of strong English influence on the Swedish lexicon. The author uses the phrase 'leaving fingerprints in translation' to refer to cases in which the original text, in this case English, influences the translation into Swedish. For Gellerstam such fingerprints are the result of early English language acquisition and the absence of more than one Swedish alternative for the translation.

Wagner asks, 'What is happening to English?' She answers her question by introducing a new term, 'sub-English', 'the defective but by no means standardised or impoverished English that is often used for international communication' (215). Following an explanation of the causes of 'sub-English', a categorization of translation types, and an examination of language use and types in different EU institutions, she offers two ways of improving the quality of original texts, i.e. through training and editing.

Chapter 15: 'Translating into a second language: Can we, should we?' by Beverly Adab (227-241)

The thesis of Adab's chapter is to argue that the 'translation meme' of translators' working into their first language is becoming untenable, 'due to the lack of native speakers of the target language who have a similar competence in the source language' (227). For Adab the issue is to enhance the acceptability of the target texts. She concludes her chapter with a recommendation that translators work within a controlled form of the target language.

Chapter 16: 'Translating English as a non-native language: The Dutch connection' by Marcel Thelen (242-255)

Thelen takes up the issue of the 'mother tongue principle', i.e. that translators should translate works into their first language. Focusing on the Dutch context, he argues against the stipulation that only native English speakers should translate texts into English. He then discusses a General Subject-Field-Specific Language Studies program as a model for a new and independent discipline for translation schools/programs.

Also taking up the issue of the mother tongue principle is Rogers. In this chapter she discusses a case study in which translations from German into English by native speakers of English were compared to translations from German into English by non-native speakers of English (native speakers of German). In the small case study she shows how the native speakers' translations were actually less fit, supporting her argument that competent non-native speakers can outperform native speakers in translating.

In this chapter Anderman discusses the plight of European authors who write in their native languages rather than in English. After presenting the hegemony of prevailing literary traditions (in which French plays were routinely translated into English), she contrasts that with twentieth century literary and linguistic hegemony (in which English works are routinely translated into other languages).

Ife considers the particular characteristics of people communicating in a language that is not the first language of the majority of the world, i.e. English. In this final chapter of the book she focuses on the need for pragmatic competence in the lingua franca context.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Though the inclusion of various authors' works and opinions increases the breadth of the book, it also diminishes the depth of analysis in any given context. Accordingly, the reader feels as though the book tries to do too much while simultaneously not doing enough. The writing throughout the book is uneven. Some chapters present clearly defined/analyzed research with specific conclusions; others seem only to offer anecdotes of limited relevance.

Overall, the sequencing of the chapters is easy to follow. Roughly, the first half of the book is devoted to contemporary examples of English influence in various European contexts, and the second half consists of discussions of the force of English influence in translation and arguments against having only native speakers of English translate into English. Given the structure of the book, the inclusion of the second chapter, which focuses on Australia and Laos, is puzzling. Missing from the book is a final chapter that makes the connections among the chapters and offers directions for further research in the area of translation.

The most disappointing part of the book is the first chapter, contributed by the authors themselves. They refer to a few scholars in the area of World Englishes (e.g. Phillipson 1992, Crystal, 1997, Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1999), but omit references to other major scholars who might offer opposing viewpoints, e.g. Kachru (1982, 1992) and Pennycook (1994), and references to other recent works on the influence of English on other languages, e.g. Gramley (2001); Allerton, Skandera, and Tschichold (2002); and Maurais and Morris (2003). Likewise, the authors raise the questions of whether an English language learner can become a 'native speaker' and what exactly is meant by the term 'native speaker' (14) without referring to Paikeday's (1985) discussion of this linguistic myth.

In all, this book may be of interest to scholars and practitioners in translation studies as it does raise significant concerns about the practice of translating in and out of English. World Englishes scholars, on the other hand, may find some of the discussions and examples presented throughout the book cursory and trivial.

REFERENCES

Allerton, D.J., Paul Skandera, and Cornelia Tschichold, eds. Perspectives on English as a world language. Verlag: Schwabe & Co. Ag.

Crystal, David. 1997. English as a global language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gramley, Stephan. 2001. The vocabulary of world English. London: Arnold.

Kachru, Braj B. 1982. The other tongue: English across cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

_____. 1992. The other tongue: English across cultures, 2nd edition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Phillipson, Robert, and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas. 1999. Englishisation: One dimension of globalization. English in a changing world, AILA Review 13, ed. by David Graddol and U. Meinhof. Oxford: English Book Centre, 19-36.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Richard W. Hallett is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. His research areas include World Englishes (particularly the mediation of ideology in English language teaching materials) and the discourse of tourism.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Richard W. Hallett is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. His research areas include World Englishes (particularly the mediation of ideology in English language teaching materials) and the discourse of tourism.